Thoughts for Friday Morning

The week is quickly coming to a close. Here are a few thoughts rolling around in my head.

  • We’re going to camp next week! Our youth group is hosting a fall “kick-off-the-school-year” camp. There will be a trapeze, skateboarding, free-style rapping, a monkey, and many Chuck Norris references. It’s going to be a fun time.
  • I’ve been doing a consistent “weekly review.” Part of the GTD strategy is to have a review every week where you review and process all your projects, inboxes, papers, everything so you can start fresh on the new week. I’ve been doing this personally, and it has helped a ton to keep my proverbial balance in life. My sweet wife and I have also been doing a weekly planning session which has been extremely encouraging. She’s an amazing help in getting my schedule together.
  • I’m encouraged by 1 Peter. In a previous post I mentioned that we’re going through 1 Peter in our youth group meeting. I have been very encouraged by Peter’s ability to present an eternal perspective while also calling us up to live a life of holiness and reverence here and now as sojourners.
  • I’m a slow reader. I’m trying to get through four books, but I seem to have stalled on all but one. Gotta get back on that horse!
  • Autumn is just around the corner Ok, maybe not just around the corner, but things are cooling down in Northern Virginia. I’m hoping September will be a month of red and yellow leaves, cool wind, and a general conviction that I will need a light jacket outside.

Thanks for reading!

This Momentary Exile

In our youth group, we’ve been going through 1 Peter, looking at how Peter addresses an audience of Christians who are experiencing persecution throughout an area that spans modern-day Turkey. As I have been reading and preparing the first few verses, one of the big points that I think Peter makes is that this life is just a moment, a short stop before eternity. In 1 Peter 1:1, he uses the term “exiles” to describe his Christian audience, a term that should remind us of our true citizenship in heaven and the transience of this life. It has been both a reviving chapter to meditate on and a challenge to communicate in a culture that focuses so heavily on here and now, with little emphasis on ultimate reality.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:3-7, ESV)

It is amazing to me that in these brief five verses, Peter covers the span of the life of a believer. We begin with Jesus and what he has already accomplished through his substitutionary atonement and resurrection. We are born again to a living hope in this Christ. And we have an ultimate destination, when Christ is revealed as our King, “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion” (Ephesians 1:21, ESV).

This life is brief. And after it, we will be reunited with our Lord. We will see Jesus.

Music for Your Monday: Page CXVI

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post hymns are a wonderful part of traditional Christianity that has been lost on many new Christians who did not grow up in the traditional church.

Thankfully, there are groups like Page CXVI, who are breathing new life into forgotten hymns by arranging the songs in more current musical styles, i.e., without the choir and pipe organ. On their website they state their purpose:

Page CXVI is a project started with the idea of making hymns accessible and known again. They are some of the richest, most meaningful, and moving pieces of music ever written.

Page CXVI has take fourteen hymns and given them a fresh musical arrangement in two albums, Hymns and Hymns II. If you have any interest in enjoying hymns or sharing them with those who would not spend two seconds listening to the lady with blue hair rocking on the Wurlitzer, then you should check them out. You can purchase and download both albums for $12.99, or if you’re a fan of dead technology, then you can get the CD + digital download for $16.99.

Everything is a Project

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been slowly working my way through Scott Belsky’s Making Ideas Happen. Belsky and his team has done a great deal of research with individuals and teams that are both creative and yet also prolific, and has presented it in an easily digested format. So far, the book has been very practical and engaging.

One of the most helpful tidbits that I’ve run into is on page 34, where Belsky states:

“The Action Method begins with a simple premise: everything is a project.” [emphasis mine]

It’s a simple but powerful statement. Ideas are projects. Reading a book is a project. Making a video is a project. Belsky covers this idea in his explanation of the “Action Method,” which is his methodology for project management and execution, but the premise holds for anyone.

If you treat everything like a project, it brings creative ideas into the world of action, instead of leaving them on a notebook with other great ideas that will never get executed. The idea of “blogging about ninja hipster culture” gets broken down into tasks like finding a host, installing WordPress, and researching and writing articles about the latest trends among young, hip ninja assassins.

This has been extremely helpful to me when I incorporate the GTD methodology to identify next actions and stay on top of all my tasks, projects, plans, and goals through weekly reviews.

One Caution

There is an obvious caveat. One danger I see in the “everything is a project” mentality is that we would treat people as projects. That can never be the case. There may be tasks associated with people. “Call Bob.” “Follow up with Sarah.” But we can never approach people as just a set of tasks that must be accomplished.

What about you? What idea or ideas have you had rolling around in your head that has stagnated because you could not or did not identify an associated project?

Learn Things with Bible Memory for iPhone

I’ve mentioned before about the importance of Bible memorization. And I’m always interested in finding ways to make memorization an easier process. One such way is by using Bible Memory, an iPhone app from Mobilize Faith.

Bible Memory is an iPhone app that helps you memorize scriptures verse-by-verse. One of the biggest strengths of this app is that it comes pre-loaded with a ton of verses to memorize, all of which have been categorized topically, e.g., strength, love, sovereignty, etc. So the distance between not studying and studying is pretty short. And if you don’t find the verse or verses you want to study, you can add your own. To start studying, all you have to do is tap the “Continue Study” button.

Once you’ve started studying, you’ll be faced with all the pre-loaded verses and any verses that you’ve added yourself. There are about 256 pre-loaded verses, so there’s plenty to work with. You can focus on a particular category or choose from the whole set of verses. Once you select a category, you can tap any verse to start studying.

The Study view has three sections: read, review, and quiz. The read section just lets you read the verse. Duh. The Review section breaks the verse up into sections and lets you review certain sections at a time. The section that you’re working on will be displayed in bold, while the rest will be normally weighted. Finally the quiz section presents you with the verse, with certain words left out and blank fields in their place. At the bottom of the screen, you can select the appropriate word to fill in a blank field. The quiz takes you through three iterations of filling in the blanks, with each iteration leaving out more words.

The settings are pretty simple. You can set reminders as well as set up email addresses for people who will keep you accountable to your studying. Finally, you can select the Bible version of the pre-loaded verses from the New International Version, New King James, King James, and New American Standard Version.

Two Minor Critiques

I almost don’t even want to call it critique, more like feature requests. The first is that Bible Memory does not come pre-loaded with the English Standard Version. But considering that it does come with the New King James and the New American Standard, this is no deal-breaker. The second is that although you can add your own verses from the iPhone, it would be nice to have a way of adding them from the Mac, since it’s much easier to get the Bible texts and copy and paste. But this is also no deal-breaker.

Overall Impression

Bible Memory is a great app. The fact that it come with categorized Bible verses makes it extremely easy to start memorizing Scripture immediately. Beyond this, it is not too hard to add your own set of verses. This can be an especially great tool for those who need to focus on a particular topic, such as forgiveness or friendship. It takes a lot of the work out of starting the process of memorization, leaving you to provide the time and discipline.

You can learn more about Mobilize Faith here. Bible Memory is $5.99 and can be purchased from iTunes (link opens iTunes).

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